Convair Helios art

 art, history, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Sep 102017
 

Recently on ebay were a set of 8X10 glossies, vintage Convair artwork depicting early spacecraft and launch vehicle concepts. I had my bid in… and was sniped in the last few seconds. Oh well. Anyway, one of the more interesting images was this one of the Convair “Helios” developed by or for Krafft Ehricke… a chemical rocket first stage equipped with wings for glide recovering and a nuclear powered second stage with a “tractor” arrangement to separate the nuclear engine from the payload – essentially a small manned laboratory to land on the moon. The second stage would unreel something like half a miles worth of cabling and drag the payload along behind it, relying on distance rather than physical radiation shielding. The second stage would take the payload all the way to the lunar surface, gently lowering it down at the end of the cables, then land Way Over There Somewhere. A modern design would, I would hope, include electrical cables and would serve as a power generator.

A middling-resolution scan of the same image was posted back in January. One day I shall get a clean high-rez version. If that day is a particularly glorious day, it will come not only with the other images created for the Helios project… but they’ll also be in color.

 Posted by at 1:03 am

Air Mobile ICBM launching

 awesomeness, history, Hmm..., nukes, projects, rockets, youtube  5 Responses »
Sep 082017
 

A great little video showing the C-5/Minuteman drop tests carried out in 1974. Two things in particular stand out: how quickly the project proceeded, and how spectacular some of the failures look. A third thing stands out: that there were spectacular failures and yet they quickly fixed their issues and move on to the next test.

 Posted by at 5:12 pm

Yay: “2001” Blu-Ray screencaps

 art, awesomeness, history, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft  10 Responses »
Aug 272017
 

There are several websites that have collections of Blu-Ray screencaps from various movies. But “2001” has somehow failed to be the number-one screengrabbed movie. Finally, though, one of the sites has made a bajillion screencaps from the “2001” Blu-Ray and posted them. Behold your new background screens!

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

 

Now I need to start whining about the lack of a thousand “2001” 4K screencaps…

 Posted by at 11:23 am

PDF Review: Grumman H-33 Orbiter definition

 aircraft, drawings, history, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Aug 132017
 

As a followup to the photos of the H-33 display model, here’s a Grumman report from July, 1971, giving a pretty good and well illustrated description of the H-33 orbiter.

The abstract on NTRS can be seen HERE.

The PDF file can be directly downloaded here:

Alternate space shuttle concepts study. Part 2: Technical summary. Volume 2: Orbiter definition

 

Support the APR Patreon to help bring more of this sort of thing to light!

 

patreon-200

 Posted by at 2:25 am

Grumman H-33 Shuttle Orbiter: plexiglas cutaway model

 aircraft, art, history, models, projects, rockets, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Aug 122017
 

The H-33 orbiter was designed in early 1971 to be launched atop a reusable manned flyback booster, a truly giant supersonic vehicle. The orbiter itself was similar in configuration to the Shuttle Orbiter as actually built, but it differed in that it had internal liquid oxygen tanks and expendable external hydrogen tanks, rather than a single large ET. The NASM has some good photos of a display model of the full system.

The H-33 was a popular design, at least at Grumman. A number of display models were made of it, including this detailed “cutaway” model made – seemingly – of plexiglas.

I have uploaded the full-rez images to the 2017-08 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to all $4 and up APR Patrons. If interested, wander on by the APR Patreon and sign up. Lots of aerospace goodies available.

 

 Posted by at 10:26 pm

“Not Quite” an ICBM

 Hmm..., news, nukes, politics, rockets, weapons  6 Responses »
Aug 122017
 

For what it’s worth:

North Korea’s “not quite” ICBM can’t hit the lower 48 states

Some folks associated with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists examined the trajectories of recent Nork ICBM test flights, looked at the presumed performance of the motors and propellant, and have concluded that the Hwasong-14 “ICBM” is a “sub-ICBM.” One of the authors of the study is a long-time critic of missile defense systems, so YMMV.

Even if the missile was a full-up ICBM capable of lobbing to New York City the kind of nuke the Norks could actually build, I would not bet large sums on the missile working as advertised in operational practice. That said… Lil’ Kim seems like a nut. Give him a weapon that will probably fail and tell him it’ll probably work (and I imagine his underlings will say what they think they need to in order to avoid the firing squad), and who knows, he might decide that The Stars Are Right and it’s time for his apotheosis via nuclear fire.

I’d be less sanguine about the chances of success for a missile like this lobbing a nuke *over* the US. A few dozen kilotons a few hundred miles up could wreak a whole lot of havoc via EMP.

 

 Posted by at 9:27 pm

MSL Stryker

 aircraft, awesomeness, news, rockets, weapons  4 Responses »
Aug 102017
 

This is the sort of thing you’d think we’d already have:

Goodbye, MiG: Boeing, General Dynamics Debut Anti-Aircraft Stryker

It can pack:

  • AI-3s, a ground-launched version of the AIM-9 missiles used by US fighters, with significantly better range and maximum altitude than the old Stinger.
  • Longbow Hellfires, originally an anti-tank missile, made famous as the favored weapon of the Predator drone, and suitable for both ground targets and low-flying aircraft like helicopter gunships.
  • Hydra 2.75 inch guided rockets;
  • 0.50 caliber machineguns;
  • and even low-powered lasers capable of burning out quadcopters and other small drones.

 

 Posted by at 1:00 am
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